Editor’s Picks: Top Stories of the Week*

The small club of global nickel miners was the top newsmaker during the week ended Feb. 2, 2007, with substantial developments at all three of the world’s leading producers.

*Xstrata Nickel and Local 598 of the Canadian Auto Workers Union reached a 3-year collective agreement at the major’s Sudbury operations, acquired as part of Xstrata’s hostile takeover of Falconbridge last year.

Many had expected a strike, since the Local’s last three bargaining rounds had all included strike action, and the CAW had strenuously opposed Xstrata’s takeover, preferring an Inco-Falconbridge merger.

Hemi Mitic, assistant to CAW president Buzz Hargrove, was uncharacteristically complimentary of the new bosses, noting a “major difference in management’s attitude at the bargaining table in this round of contract talks.”

*Companhia Vale do Rio Doce installed new personnel at its newly formed nickel subsidiary CVRD Inco, going with a solid mix of existing CVRD and Inco talent. At the top, Murilo Ferreira becomes president and CEO of CVRD Inco, replacing Scott Hand, who is retiring. Former high-level Inco personnel who are sticking around include Scott McDonald, Mark Cutifani, Peter Goudie, Simon Fish and Phil du Toit. CVRD is now the world’s second-largest miner after BHP Billiton and has given every indication it intends to boost nickel output by expanding capacity at existing mines and fast-tracking the development of new mines around the world.

* The dark monsters of Russian business have spooked Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov, who unexpectedly announced he’s selling his interest in Norilsk Nickel to his partner, fellow oligarch Vladimir Potanin. Both men own a 27.4% interest in Norilsk, the world’s largest nickel miner, with each stake worth about US$7 billion. Their substantial interests in Polyus Gold, Russia’s largest gold miner, will also be sold and divided evenly.

Why now? It’s rumoured the government is planning to have state diamond giant Alrosa buy Norilsk Nickel, effectively renationalizing the metals company, which is one of the country’s last strategic natural resource assets not under Kremlin control.

Prokhorov had objected to any sale for years, but his hand was weakened after his arrest in France last month on suspicion of participating in a prostitution ring.

How interesting then, that Potanin, who is seen as more willing to accommodate the Kremlin, was in Paris last week accepting from the French minister of culture and communications the award of “Officer in the Order of Arts and Letters” for his “cultural contributions” to France.

* Topping the gold news was Crystallex International, which lived up to its “KRY” ticker with another week of tears for its shareholders. They’ve been watching Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez gradually assume the dictatorial powers he says he needs in order to socialize his country’s economy and renationalize key industries.

Jan. 30 was punctuated by a phony press release posted to a Yahoo “bullboard” that said the Venezuelan government was on the verge of granting a mining permit for Crystallex’s massive, but long-delayed, Las Cristinas gold project in Bolivar state. KRY briefly jumped almost 10% before investors made it to the bottom of the gag release to read that Chavez was “leaning toward filling the mine with water and soaking his fat ass in it.”

Two days later, Crystallex president, CEO and director Todd Bruce was out the door, replaced by Gordon Thompson, who was a director from 2000 to 2002.

* Our favourite exploration result came from Hudson Resources, which found a nice-looking, 2.4-carat diamond while processing a 47-tonne bulk sample from the Garnet Lake kimberlite dyke in Greenland. It’s the largest diamond ever found in Greenland.

* And finally, it looks like we may have a winner in the long bidding war between Imperial Metals and Taseko Mines for bcMetals — surely a sign of the times that companies are eager to acquire such a low-grade deposit as bcMetals’ Red Chris gold-copper porphyry in B.C. Late on Feb. 2, Imperial tabled a $1.70-per-share bid that bcMetals’ directors recommend shareholders accept.

* In a new feature for our readers, an unabridged Editor’s picks commentary will appear as a Daily News item at www.northernminer.com at the end of each trading week. It will be accessible to both our online and newspaper subscribers.

Send your Letters-to-the-Editor and other op-ed submissions to the Editor at: tnm@northernminer.com, fax: (416) 510-5137, or 12 Concorde Pl., Suite 800, Toronto, ON M3C 4J2.